


Medicine

by silverliningingold



Series: ...since I lost you [1]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Gintoki Sakata, Love, M/M, Night Terrors, Protective Hijikata Toshirou, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23887618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverliningingold/pseuds/silverliningingold
Summary: “And this is the man I’m in love with. Don’t you fucking dare call him a monster again.”
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Series: ...since I lost you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097072
Comments: 20
Kudos: 165





	Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> The original idea for this is not mine, but after reading a one shot I was thinking of two fandoms already and just... I really see this happening. Grief sneaking in when you least expect it is... the absolute worst and I think this is one way Gintoki might deal with it.

The reigning silence was suffused with barely contained breaths, with cold beads of sweat uncomfortably sitting on his skin, glistening down his body with every panic filled exhale.

He had secluded himself in the bathroom when his dinner decided to climb its way out, and now he was standing on trembling calves, with his knuckles turned paper white underneath his skin, muscles straining and fingers swelling blood red with how hard he was gripping the spotless sink. His body was barely holding him up, drawn taut like the string of a bow and about to snap at any second. He tried to wash it away, but it stayed, the taste of dread filled up his stomach, filled him up to his pores.

Gintoki was bruising himself black and blue in the spiral of despair. He _knew,_ and still, he couldn’t _stop_ the onslaught (not that he had ever been able to).

Everything that made up his world would give away under his hands, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it, the slicing of skin, the crushing of bones, the screams of anguish, all stacked up in his head, there for him to analyze and overanalyze in the darkest hours. As if he was actively trying to sabotage himself among the wreckage of his thoughts.

Eyes rimmed bloodshot stared back at him, but this hollow reflection was everything that had once been, that _he_ had once been. And he _hated_ it to pieces, every last bit of it. He hated the way he wore the hurt like sewn shut wounds webbed across his body in faded pink scarred tissue… but he hated the way he wore the unnoticeable scars the most, sometimes their scarlet blood was all he could see.

He was usually so good at suppressing it, _so good,_ had years of practice to master the fear, but tonight they had caught him unaware. It was not supposed to happen. The memories had snuck their way in like thieves clad in the dark, rising past his highest defenses, his tired eyelids just wouldn’t keep close against the fragments of tragedy flickering in through flashes.

In the nightmare he had skinned knees, the smouldering rocks in the ground dug painfully into his skin, the handle of his sword had blistered through his palm, eating through raw muscle and bone, tendons and ligaments, fraying his nerve-endings, his blood vessels burst.

His teacher was saying his name, _Gintoki,_ he was pleading, without voice. His teacher’s body laid unmoving, frozen, a corpse decaying. His teacher’s eyes stared up at him from the ground, kind, and smiling, and bloodied. And _burning._

His own eyes had snapped open and he woke up gasping the vowels of his name, unfallen tears distorting his hazy vision.

His lungs were stuttering through the air, his chest constricted- how was he _even_ breathing? How was he _still alive?_

At this point he was unaware of how much time had gone by, lost track of it somewhere after midnight, but it must have been longer than he thought when he heard the door silently creak open.

“…Gintoki.” Hijikata whispered on the threshold, as if to alert him of his presence in case he had dived too deep in his own head again. His tone of voice suggested he already _knew._

His soft footfalls on the pavement contrasted with the hammering, bleeding organ inside Gintoki’s ribcage. He felt like cracking a joke, he wanted so badly to deflect with humor, but it was too late, because Hijikata already _knew_ and the shallow words were lodged somewhere behind his pulsing eyelids, where the horror had yet to fade.

He was suddenly encompassed in warmth when Hijikata closed the distance between them, chest to back, the heat of his palms against the freezing back of his hands. His thumbs pressed in his skin, gently stroking at his pulse points and Gintoki finally allowed himself to close his eyes, craving the comfort he provided more than the oxygen stuttering its way in through lungfuls of air.

He didn’t deserve it, but he still let his presence send shockwaves of relief to his system.

“…I don’t understand.” Gintoki broke the smothering silence. “Why are you even wasting your time with me?”

“What are you talking about?” Hijikata asked back softly, the edge to his voice drifting from somewhere behind him and close to his ear.

He knew his anger wasn’t aimed at him, but at how Gintoki’s own mind worked _against him._ Even now he couldn’t stand Hijikata’s selflessness directed at him. He felt undeserving of it. A bout of choked, wet laughter creeped its way past his throat. “…I’m a murderer, don’t you understand. I have _killed_ people- I- I'm a monster-”

“You have _protected_ people.” Hijikata interrupted his barrage of self-hatred, steel gaze searing him even through closed eyelids. “You put your life on the line countless times to protect people you didn’t even know. You kept moving forward even when you had nothing left to hold on to.”

Gintoki denied it, hated the way he made him sound so… so _heroic_ when in his head he had built himself up to be the stark _opposite._ “You don’t understand-” No more than a hateful plead through clenched teeth. “-what if- what if I lose _control?"_ The control he fought so hard for, the way he had fought for his life. Terror sweltered like acid in the burning pit of his stomach. “What if I hurt y-you-”

“You won’t ever hurt me.” Hijikata spoke with such earnest _conviction_ he had to feel it in his bones to truly mean it, as if the mere possibility of it happening was inconceivable to him and Gintoki would have liked to believe so too, but on good days he barely trusted himself. And after a pause he added, “Gintoki, open your eyes.”

Gintoki didn’t want to, he despised the man in the mirror staring back at him, but Hijikata was so _warm_ against him, warm enough to keep the ice cold dread away, and he listened.

“Do you see the man in front of you?”

Gintoki opened his mouth a sliver, overcome by sudden bittersweetness because the one staring back at him was not alone anymore.

“Let me tell you about him.” Hijikata’s voice was a gentle murmur, eyes trained to his reflected image. “This man right here is the one who never gave up, even when all the odds were against him. But this man wouldn’t also think twice about giving himself up for the people he loves because the way he _cares_ so deeply about others... sometimes it ends up ruining him.”

Gintoki wanted to seal his eyes shut, but the glint coming alive in Hijikata’s irises was preventing him from doing so.

“He is the one who shows up at work when I’m having the worst time, without me even needing to tell him because he can hear it in my voice when we’re talking on the phone. And he’s the one who wakes up at dawn to make me breakfast when I have to leave for a few weeks, even if he loves sleeping more than anything.”

He almost had to bite on a laugh around the unmistakable smile in Hijikata’s voice, shining in his eyes, burning through Gintoki’s veins. 

“This is the man who held my hand throughout countless, unbearable nights at the hospital for us both. This is the only man I've let myself cry in front of. He’s the only one I’ve ever felt safe enough to show my scars to because he has never judged me for them, he has never rejected me for what I’ve done.” The minute tremble in his voice was so clear-cut Gintoki could feel it in his own vocal cords. “…and what I’ve been through.”

Hijikata’s curved mouth pressed to the tense slope of his shoulder, every velvety breath punctuated through his clothed skin, word by word easing his ailing.

“…This is the man who showed me love when all I knew was hopelessness. When all I knew was the emptiness of loss.”

Tenderness spread throughout him in raging sparks that scorched every last inch of him, loving and hating the memories the conceded confession came with.

“And this man you see in the mirror is the man I’m in love with. Don’t you fucking dare call him a monster again.” Hijikata smiled so sincerely a fair comparison could only be a golden daylight after blazing darkness.

Even now, he had caught him off guard, managing to shake every corner of his heart.

Gintoki let out a heavy exhale, lips stretching underneath the weight of Hijikata’s words… until _finally_ looking back at him with a smile of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> [Medicine-Havelin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5vTYKONznU) is the wonderful, _wonderful_ song that inspired practically everything in this story
> 
> the author with the original idea said they wrote their story when they were feeling particularly lonely and sad and wanted someone to tell them how important they are and I completely got what they meant after reading it, I hope you guys are okay and that you have someone who is always there to support you and be there for you when you are having a tough time, but if not please know that you are ALWAYS important and validated and you matter! hope everyone is doing well <3


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